The Attributes of Jesus Christ: Long-Suffering and Patient

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Faith, Family, Relief

This is part of a series of Visiting Teaching Messages featuring attributes of the Savior.

Patience is often thought of as a quiet, passive trait, but as President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, Second Counselor in the First Presidency, said, “Patience is not passive resignation, nor is it failing to act because of our fears. Patience means active waiting and enduring. It means staying with something … even when the desires of our hearts are delayed. Patience is not simply enduring; it is enduring well!”

In our premortal life, our Heavenly Father prepared a plan for us﻿—His spirit children﻿—and we shouted for joy at the opportunity to come to earth (see Job 38:7). As we choose to align our will with His during our earthly life, He “will make an instrument of [us] in [His] hands unto the salvation of many souls” (Alma 17:11).

President Uchtdorf continued, “Patience means accepting that which cannot be changed and facing it with courage, grace, and faith. It means being ‘willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon [us], even as a child doth submit to his father’ [Mosiah 3:19]. Ultimately, patience means being ‘firm and steadfast, and immovable in keeping the commandments of the Lord’ [1 Nephi 2:10] every hour of every day, even when it is hard to do so.”1

Additional Scriptures

From the Scriptures

The scriptures tell us that in our earthly life, we should “be patient in afflictions, for [we shall] have many.” God then gives us this comforting promise, “Endure them, for, lo, I am with thee, even unto the end of thy days” (D&C 24:8).

The following Bible story is an example of patience and faith.

“And a woman having an issue of blood twelve years … touched the border of [Christ’s] garment: and immediately her issue of blood stanched [stopped].

“And Jesus said, … Somebody hath touched me: for I perceive that virtue is gone out of me.

“And when the woman saw that she was not hid, she came trembling, and falling down before him, she declared unto him before all the people for what cause she had touched him, and how she was healed immediately.

“And he said unto her, Daughter, be of good comfort: thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace” (Luke 8:43–48).

Like her, we can find blessings and comfort, and even healing, as we reach out to Jesus Christ﻿—whose Atonement can heal us.

Note

Dieter F. Uchtdorf, “Continue in Patience,” Ensign, May 2010, 57, 59.

Consider This

From the account in Luke 8, how was this woman’s years of patience and then her faith in Jesus Christ rewarded?